


Through The Looking Glass

by Le_Chien_Bleu



Category: The Libertines
Genre: Light BDSM, M/M, Verbal Humiliation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-29
Updated: 2015-06-29
Packaged: 2018-04-06 21:29:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4237320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Le_Chien_Bleu/pseuds/Le_Chien_Bleu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peter has a visitor.  Carl gets what he came for.  It is exactly what it looks like.  <br/>Set post Libertines break-up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Through The Looking Glass

He knows what he looks like. Framed in the hotel room doorway, limbs arranged in a casual pose. As if he just happened to be passing; as if he hadn’t walked through the lobby slightly too fast, deliberately avoiding the eye of the concierge, fingers worrying the scrap of paper in his pocket and smearing the scribbled room number. Peter finds it endearing, that Carl the drama student is still such a bad actor.

Full marks for style though. He is woven of textures that suit the night: shadows of inky hair, fingertips-faded black denim, supple leather wrapped around him like a second skin. Scuffed biker boots threaten a toughness that belies the soft curves of his cheekbones, the spit licked pink lips. It takes a lot of hard work to look that effortless. Peter loves the care with which his friend puts himself together. It makes it so much more satisfying to watch him come apart.

Sometimes Peter delights in pulling a single thread at a time, until Carl is dissembled and unravelling under his hands. But tonight he is in no mood for taking his time; he wants to tear.

The knock at the door is skittish. Peter does not get up from the chair he is lounged in, simply calling open and waiting. He sets down his drink, stronger than his usual tipple, the smoky amber liquid still filling his throat. He is careful to hold his face in a neutral mask, only glancing briefly up when the door eases open tentatively. 

Come in, he says, but his visitor lingers in the doorway. Carl’s stance straddles the entrance in rock star hesitance; one black boot studded foot in, one out, like he hasn’t quite made up his mind to stay. Peter know that this – like the sunglasses after dark and the cigarette dangling from his knuckles in this non-smoking suite – is just an attitude. They both know he is going nowhere. 

Well, decides Peter, he had his chance. 

‘Strip.’

The instruction is precise and blunt. Carl is quick to stifle his reaction, blue eyes flaring and lips pulling into a slight pout. Peter hides a smirk, always tickled by how easy it is to rattle the boy. He sounds mildly affronted when he finally speaks.

‘Some host you are. Don’t I ‘tleast get a drink first?’

Carl’s mumble covers a multitude of sins, but Peter is something of a connoisseur. Tonight it’s mainly nerves, already dampened down by a few drinkies from the sound of it. He watches Carl’s eyes settle hungrily on his own glass.

‘Now this is why you were such a terrible rent boy, my love.’ Peter shakes his head reprovingly. He looks up at the clock on the wall, and pointedly back at Carl. 

They have done this often enough for the next bit not to be said out loud; if he doesn’t want to do what he’s told, he can leave. It took a literal demonstration before Carl believed he meant it. When Peter had sent him away, the look in his eyes – wet and glittering with outrage and frustrated want – was almost worth his own thwarted desire.

Carl finally unpeels himself from the doorway and begins to close it behind him.

‘No.’ Peter interrupts him. ‘That’s not what I said.’

Carl looks at him, eyes clouded with confusion, and Peter wonders how much Dutch courage has brought him here tonight. He decides to be kind. 

‘I said: come in, and strip. Never said close the door.’

The blue eyes widen like a flooding sea. Carl glances behind himself in a helpless gesture. The corridor is empty, for now. He looks back at Peter to see if he means it. 

Peter decides he does. After all, Carl is late and he is bored. And he knows that really Carl wants him to mean it, just as desperately as he wants to be let off. He can see the struggle in the boy’s eyes – knowing he ought to make a show of resistance, and knowing he is going to give in. Sometimes he thinks this is his favourite part. He swirls the melting ice cubes around his drink and waits. 

Peter watches leather clad shoulders shrug in defeat as the boy steps reluctantly into the room. He smirks and leans back in his chair.

‘Get on with it then. Or rather, off with it.’

* * *

He knows what he looks like. There is a full length mirror helpfully tilted against the wall, which he is sure is no accident. Peter loves a prop. Like the glass of whisky he doesn’t even like, poised temptingly out of reach. But Carl doesn’t need the mirror’s reflection to see himself. Bare knees on the dark carpet, pale skin exposed to lamplight and the neon flickers from the open blinds, the bones of his white wrists wrapped in black leather behind his back. The image burns in his mind and on his red cheeks. 

They have seen each other naked a hundred times. He knows that Peter knows every scar and mark on his skin as well as he knows himself. But there is still a hot twist of shame in being made to undress, to strip himself bare, scrap by scrap, while Peter sits back to enjoy the show.

The wolf whistle, he thinks, is a step too far. It is childish but it makes his face hot and his eyes flicker shut. He is very aware of the open door at his back. Aware of the fact that Peter will see anyone coming before he does, and not sure whether he would warn him or not. Tonight, he thinks probably not.

The silence is worse. Peter doesn’t comment, just regards his clumsy striptease dispassionately. There is no reaction when he gets caught in the neck of his shirt and nearly tumbles in his struggle to get free, swearing under his breath, feeling ridiculous. He hears only the clink of ice cubes against glass, air conditioner white noise, his own heavy breathing.

His fingers fumble with his belt buckle, both eager and reluctant to undo it. He half hopes if he does what he’s told that Peter will relent, that the hungry gleam in his eyes will subside. He doesn’t entirely trust him like this – when he looks at Carl like a shiny new toy. He has seen what Peter does to his toys.

The tough leather gives way and he peels open his jeans, fidgeting the tight fabric down his thighs. His skin is too hot, prickling under watching eyes. He needs to calm down. This is only the beginning and already he is squirming and embarrassed, just from taking off his clothes. Had too much to drink earlier, maybe. It is hard to find the balance between just enough to let him relax into this, and so much that he is suggestible and defenceless. 

He stands in the middle of the room down to just his briefs, flimsy and stretching shamefully over his crotch. He shifts awkwardly, resists the urge to shield himself with his hands. His fists clench and he doesn’t know where to put them. He can feel every inch of naked skin exposed to the air, to the open doorway; to Peter’s gaze, which he can feel dragging over him like sticky fingers, probing and teasing his sensitive flesh.

‘Were you this prudish with your clients, Carlos? No wonder the agency gave you the shove.’ Peter’s voice is light and amused but his eyes are unkind. ‘Come on, love, knickers off. Or do you need a bigger audience to motivate you?’

Carl doesn’t know what that entails but he doesn’t like it. Doesn’t like the way Peter is looking away into the corridor behind him. It is enough to bring his hands to the elastic of his underwear, to pull them down with a tug. The catch of fabric on his hardening cock makes him gasp. He doesn’t look directly at Peter but they both know his last suggestion has had its desired effect.

He is almost grateful when Peter only says on your knees, glad to let himself sink to the floor, letting his head bow and his hair veil his hot cheeks.

* * *

He knows what the boy looks like when he is desperate. What he looks like when he has had enough, when he is begging silently for more, how he looks when he doesn’t know anymore what he wants. 

Peter knows the vocabulary of every flutter of feathery eyelashes, the nervous pull of teeth on sore lips, each clench of fingers and suppressed shudder; he can read Carl like music. 

He knows that he can’t trust the boy’s tongue, silvered and sluggish in turn, that lies to both of them indiscriminately.

‘What do you want, love?’

A hard swallow; words smothered in his throat. His head ducks lower, hiding his face from the question. Peter twists his fingers in the dark velvet of the boy’s hair, yanking hard until his face lifts to the light, eyes and lips wide in pain. He holds him fast so he can’t escape and leans down to whisper.

‘Do you want me to close the door, before I fuck you, or shall we leave it open? Let anyone walking by see you on your knees, struggling and helpless?’

Half choked sounds, that could mean yes or no, or please. His thighs part, just slightly, as he rebalances his weight under Peter’s fist. He sees him wince at the burn of carpet on bare knees. But the blazing blue eyes don’t blink.

‘You know you always perform best with an audience, don’t you? And you look so pretty with your face all red, and your eyes begging – almost seems a shame to keep you to myself.’ He pulls back to survey the blushing boy beneath him. Lets the grip on his hair soften, watches Carl relax slightly, his eyes falling closed. 

Peter reaches ice-chilled fingers to tweak at a nipple. Carl’s body snaps like he has electrocuted him. He closes his fingers over the hard bud, pinches, rolls, scratches the sensitive pink skin with his nails, and watches him writhe. Listens to the helpless moan that scrapes its way out of his throat. 

‘Mm, I think you like that idea. Look at the state of you, so desperate and hard and leaking and I haven’t even touched you yet. Imagine how it would feel, love, if I dragged you down to the bar like this, trussed up and stripped.’ 

He feels the pull as Carl tries to arch away from him, from the words that are prising their way behind his eyes. 

‘Feeling all those eyes on you, burning into you, as I shove you over the cold bar and put my fingers inside you. Always wanted people to hear how you squeal and beg me to stop and then beg for more. Want them to see what a desperate little whore you really are. How long d’you reckon it would take NME to get a photographer down there, eh?’ 

He is teasing now, half laughing to himself, but his work is done. Carl’s eyes are clamped shut and his skin is flaming; his wet lips are parted and gasping as the pictures unfold in his imagination. Peter knows he is watching himself being taken, humiliated, and watches the shame unfurl through his body, only making him harder and more desperate.

* * *

Carl knows what he looks like when he has lost. It is an image he has seen reflected in Peter’s eyes more often than he can remember. He has seen it in the triumphant smirk of every petty argument when Peter made his temper flare; he saw it magnified a thousand times the first time Peter worked out that he wanted this, that he could put Carl on his knees and make him beg for it.

In the end, he knew the threat was an empty one. But it didn’t matter. Didn’t make any difference that Peter casually swung the door shut, like he was always going to, before shoving him forwards and sliding into him in one movement and making him scream. 

It is the surrender that counts; his helplessness in the grip of the silky web of words that Peter can weave into his brain and down his spine and tighten around him until he feels he is going to explode.

He takes an embarrassingly short time to erupt all over himself, untouched, once Peter is inside him, a few brutal thrusts enough to send fire through his body and scorch his mind blank. Thankfully, he is only distantly aware of the cries coming from his own lips, of words that include please and fuckme and Peter over and over.

He ends up on his face, arms still twisted painfully behind him, throat and arse sore. 

Peter’s hands turn soft and nursing, lifting him onto the bed and easing off the stiff belt that binds his hands. 

The bedclothes are gentle on his heated skin and the whisky cold over his bitten tongue. Taunting words are replaced with kisses, warm lips that sooth nipped and bruised flesh. Loving arms wrap around him and fingers – that earlier pinched and pulled – smooth slow, calming circles on his skin. Peter’s body, warm and anchoring, curls around him.

Caught together like this in the long eye of the mirror, they look like love.

When he leaves, the night is so late it is becoming early again. He reassembles himself carefully: skinny jeans wincingly fastened, shirt smoothed over tender skin, cool leather jacket heavy and reassuring over his aching shoulders. 

He is not ready to go home just yet, caught in a dreamlike world between the night’s fantasy and the dawning day. He pauses downstairs for the drink that he craved earlier, the liquid burning and reassuring in his mouth. If his cheeks flush as he runs a fingertip over the cold surface of the bar, he tells himself it is the heat of the alcohol.

His eyes are shielded behind mirrored shades, deflecting the gazes that follow him out of the hotel bar. Behind him, he leaves a perfect tableau: cigarette butt smouldering, ice water slicking the bottom of his glass, a generous note tucked underneath. 

His reflection in the lobby windows is straight and slick; sleek leather silhouette and shiny boots that echo expensively in the breaking morning. He doesn’t have to look back into the glass; he knows how he looks.

* * *


End file.
